A Hard Living

Well after many starts and stops, backpedals, second thoughts and third thoughts I’ve finally gone all in on this writing thing. The world of fiction writing, I am discovering, is horribly backwards: you submit a story, wait four to six months for an editor to respond, ninety nine times out of a hundred the answer is “reject,” but the one out of a hundred that does get published they pay you in copy (getting paid in copy means they give you a copy of the magazine). Believe it or not sometimes you even have to pay to have your story considered – not published considered. It’s a tough way to make a living.

I’ve come to the conclusion that in order to be a writer you have to have something to say. I should be more specific, you should have something worthwhile to say. I suppose this is true of any art form: art is anything that makes a worthwhile statement. That’s probably as good a definition as any I’ve heard. I certainly have stories to tell, whether or not they are worthwhile, well I suppose that’s up to the public.